The last time I preached first
at a conference was in 2007 at Brother Donny Bell's. I don't know what I did, but
I've been preaching last ever since. I'm hoping I don't mess
up tonight. The Lord Jesus gives the message
that He would have His people to preach. I've been trying to
get a message out of Psalm 41 for about six months now. And every time I go to this Psalm,
I just could get nothing. And I had some trouble that came
about and just broke my heart. I mean, really did break my heart. And I went back to this psalm
and the Lord opened it up to me in a way that I could not
have seen if I hadn't experienced that trouble. And the Lord really
does give you the message that He would have you preach. And
I found out I wasn't alone. That week I was experiencing
this trouble. Brother David Pledger called
me and he was going through almost the exact same trouble. And I
spoke with Brother Marvin Stoniker on almost the exact trouble. And Lord's people, we experience
the same kinds of trials, the same kinds of trouble, the kinds
of trouble we're going to read about in this Psalm 41. And so I trust that the Lord,
He blessed me by preparing this, and I trust He'll bless your
heart knowing we suffer the same kinds of trouble in this world.
I've titled this, The Blessing of the Blessed. You read here
the heading of Psalm 41.1 and it says this is to the chief
musician, a psalm of David. And there's no doubt that David
penned these words and David experienced the trouble that
he's writing about here. But these words are the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and nobody experienced the trouble
that our Lord experienced when He was here to save His poor
people. In verse 9, it says, Christ speaks
here being betrayed by His friend. He says, Yea, mine own familiar
friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted
up his heel against me. The Lord Jesus quoted this in
John 13, speaking of Judas. He said, I speak not of you all,
I know whom I've chosen, but that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Talking about Psalm 41, 9. He said that the scripture might
be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me
hath lifted up his heel against me. So these words, without a
doubt, are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's who's speaking
here. And our gracious shepherd starts
this psalm out in the first two verses and gives us the whole
point of the psalm. He says, first of all, verse
one, blessed, happy is he that considereth the poor. And that
word considereth means prospereth. Blessed is he that considers
the poor so as to help to try to prosper the poor. And then
he says what the blessing is, what the happiness is of the
blessed man. It's his covenant keeping God.
He says in verse one, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble,
in the evil day. The Lord will preserve him and
keep him alive and he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou
will not deliver him until the will of his enemies. This psalm,
our Lord Jesus is teaching us what he taught on the Sermon
on the Mount. He said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy. And that's what he's teaching
us here. Blessed is he that considereth the poor. The Lord will deliver
him. The Lord will keep him. When
we're born again of the Holy Spirit and created anew by our
Lord, He makes you willingly, cheerfully merciful. He makes
you want to consider the poor and specifically poor sinners. And the way He makes us serve
Him in considering the poor is by providing the gospel of Christ
and crucify Him. Whatever it is that we can do
for for those that are in need and to take the burden off of
them, to help them so that they don't have to focus on that,
they can focus on the gospel. We're willing to do that because
we want to see poor, needy sinners be able to hear this gospel,
which is the only salvation for poor, needy sinners. And so He
makes you consider the poor. But as you do, as you give yourself
You try to provide, promote the gospel, provide the gospel together
where it's preached and all you together as the church and you
try to provide for one another and for those poor sinners that
come in to hear the gospel. Don't be surprised if they don't
appreciate it. Don't be surprised if they treat
you with the same contempt as we see Christ treated with in
this psalm. Well, we hear what Christ teaches
us here, and it's a very comforting word that He gives us. First,
I want you to see the blessed man here is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the blessed man who considereth
and prospereth His poor, needy people. The Lord Jesus. Before
this world was made, the Son of God entered into covenant
with the Father to prosper, to consider and prosper God's elect. Not everybody in the world did
this for God's elect. God chose his people freely by
his sovereign grace. Not any cause in us, good or
evil, not any foreseen merit in us, simply by his grace. And
because that's the case, whenever we became plunged into the depths
of poverty, in sin and death, in Adam, in the garden, when
we plunged into poverty, that covenant did not change. It was
of grace, and it remains of grace. And because it's of grace, our
Lord Jesus continued to consider all His people, even when we
fell in sin. The Scriptures tell us that In
Psalm 136, 23, He remembered us in our low estate for His
mercy endureth forever. And we know how He considered
us. Some, I've heard preach on this in a very blessed message,
who said Christ is the poor. Well, I don't have a problem
with that either because you know how the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became
poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. But He came
and He considered His poor people. The Son of God made Himself one
with us in all things. Hebrews 2.17 says, Wherefore
in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren. that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of his people. He made himself one with us. He made himself to be born of
a woman, born of flesh like unto his brethren. He made himself
to be born under the law to redeem his poor people who were under
the law. He made himself presented Himself and was made sin for
us and knew no sin that He might make us to righteousness of God
in Him. He was made curse for us to save
us from the curse and condemnation that we were under. This is how
He considered the poor. And so the Son of God came Himself
and made Himself one with us. This one who is God, this one
who is one with The father, the son of God came and Paul said
in Philippians 2, he made himself of no reputation. This one who
over anybody had every right to be made a reputation, made
himself of no reputation. And he took upon him the form
of a servant. Just think about that. We couldn't
serve God. We could not serve God. We could
not work out a righteousness for ourselves. We couldn't put
away our sin. We are the poor. And he came
and took the form of a servant to serve God on our behalf. That's why he came. And the scripture
says, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He was obedient before He went
to the cross and He was obedient while He was on the cross. Our
Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was serving the Father in perfect
obedience. That's what He was doing. His
obedience until the death of the cross was that when the time
came, our Lord Jesus Christ went to the Garden of Gethsemane and
presented Himself to the Father in perfect obedience. In the
first garden, it was disobedience that made us the poor sinner.
But in the garden of Gethsemane, it was perfect obedience. Him
presenting Himself to the Father and then going to the cross to
bear the sin of His people, to be our scapegoat, to have the
sin of His people laid upon Him, to be made sin for us who know
no sin. and to stand under the judgment
of God. Verse four. He made intercession for us.
I said, Lord, be merciful unto me. Heal my soul, for I have
sinned against thee. Our Lord Jesus was born of a
virgin. so that he wasn't born of a sinful man like you and
I. He came forth holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
He is the one holy, perfect man who served God perfectly. That's
who He is. And part of the obedience that
was required of Him was to manifest the righteousness of God. This
is not just something that we're passionate about, whereas, you
know, I might be passionate about this and somebody else passionate
about something else. This is the gospel. Our Lord
Jesus Christ came to manifest the righteousness of God. That's
what he came for. He came to show us that God always
does what is right. In everything he does, he does
what is right. That's who God is. He's righteous. He's holy. He can do no other
than what's right. He was on that cross manifesting
that God is just. The Lord made him sin because
it was the just way in order for God to pour out the curse
and make him the curse in place of his people. And He went to
the cross and He's bearing the sin of His people and He's bearing
the justice of God in place of His people to show that God is
just. He's upholding the law for His
people and for God. He's upholding the law. He's
fulfilling the law. He's giving God's justice, everything
it demands of His people. Christ is giving that to the
law for His people. He's declaring God's just. At
the same time, He's declaring God is the justifier. He's there
justifying His people from our sins. That's what was taking
place on that cross. You talk about considering the
poor. He literally, in every way, in
the most real way that we can't fathom, made Himself to stand
in our room instead as the one sin-bearing substitute that God
looked to in place of His people to declare that God will only
save a sinner in a way that is perfectly righteous. Perfectly
righteous. And in His holy obedience, as
He presented Himself to the spotless Lamb of God, He made intercession
for us. Robert Hawker said, The Lord
Jesus stood with all the burden of His people's sins upon Him.
As the prophet said, the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity
of us all. And as such, Christ might well
be supposed in the name of His redeemed to say, Heal my soul,
for I have sinned against Thee. You know, everything we do is
full of sin. Everything we do is full of sin.
Even our confession of our sin is full of sin. If we're going
to have a perfect confession of our sin, Christ is going to
have to do it for us. And our Lord Jesus Christ stood
in the room instead of His people, and He made this intercession
for us, owning the sin as His sin. The Lord said through Isaiah,
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the small with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death. He said, heal my soul. He poured
out his soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors.
That wasn't just sinners numbering him with the transgressors. God
numbered him with the transgressors. He bared the sin of many and
made intercession for the transgressors. That's what we see there in verse
four. And our Lord Jesus Christ is
the author and finisher of faith for his people. He's the author
and finisher of faith for his people. He lived and he died,
even on the cross, in perfect faith and fidelity to the Father. Perfectly. Looking to his Father
to provide for him the whole time. That's what it is to take
the form of a servant, is to look to the Father to provide
in perfection from the beginning to the end. even the death of
the cross. And that's how he provided his
people a perfect obedience to God. He is the faithful one in
whom all his people are faithful. He's the holy one in whom all
his people are perfectly holy. He's the righteousness of God
in whom all His people have been made, the righteousness of God.
However real He stood there and owned that sin to be His and
made sin and borne the sin of His people and paid all the debt
we owe, however real He was made sin, that's how real we're made,
the righteousness of God in Him. That's the good news, brethren.
That's how He considered the poor. Now, the second thing I
want us to see here is our Lord Jesus teaches us that His blessedness
and His happiness, blessed is he that considereth the poor,
His blessedness, His happiness was not in poor sinners. It was
not in poor sinners. His blessedness, His happiness
was not in sinners. And we ought never expect it
in sinners. And those that you serve and
those that you're trying to help, those you're trying to preach
the gospel to, don't be disappointed. if they disappoint you. As he bore the sins of his poor
elect people, what did other sinners do? As he's there, here
he is. He's God's salvation. God in
human flesh. He's the righteousness of God.
And as he's saving his people from our sin, what did other
sinners do? Did they appreciate him? Did
they fall down and ask him for mercy? Verse 5. and said, My enemy speak
evil of me. When shall he die and his name
perish? And if he come to see me, if
one of these come to see me, come to talk to me, he speaketh
vanity. His heart gathereth iniquity
to itself. And then when he goes abroad,
after he's come to talk to me, our Lord said, he goes abroad
and he tells it. All that hate me whisper together
against me. against me do they devise my
heart." The Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the other enemies
of Christ, they wanted Him dead and they wanted His name just
to perish. They wanted it to be just extinguished from the
earth. That's what they wanted. But
they wanted Christ to give them a reason for rejecting Him so
they could justify themselves before men and say, this is why
we're rejecting Him. Have you ever Notice that's what
sinners do. They'll hang around a long time
to get you to load their gun for them so they can shoot you. Then went to Pharisees and took
counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. Sometimes if
I get an email and it's just that obvious somebody wanting
to fuss and stir up trouble. And, you know, we've got to be
careful about that. Some people might be asking an honest question,
but sometimes it's just abundantly clear. This is just, this ain't
a question for information. This is a question to fight.
That's all it's about. And my reply is always, I just sit back,
Matthew 22, 15, and that's it. Then shall they how they might
entangle him in his talk. And that's all it is. That's
all it is. And then Christ said that when
he goes abroad, after he gave them an answer, he shut their
mouth. He gave them an answer that they could not, they couldn't
refute it. But he said they go abroad and
they tell it. And they didn't go abroad telling
what they heard him say. They went abroad twisting it
and taking it out of context and trying to make it sound,
say what they wanted to say be lies to justify them leaving. Christ said they did it because
they hated me. is Christ constrained you by His love. As you see what
He's done for you, how He's been the blessed man who considered
you the poor sinner. And you're constrained by that
love so that you're willing to be used of God to provide the
gospel and to send the gospel forth into this world and to
provide for poor sinners in other ways. As you're used of God to
do that, Don't be surprised when people treat you like they treated
Christ. We ought never be surprised at that. And our Lord told us
not to be surprised at that. He said, remember the word that
I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord.
Am I Lord going to suffer like this and mean I suffer? What
did Paul tell the Philippians? It's given to you not only to
believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. speak lies that
aren't the truth. They speak things about you and
they twist your words or they just don't appreciate anything.
And it's easy to have a little pity party, you know, and think,
well, I've tried to sacrifice for them. I tried to give them
this and that and tried to, you know, make sure they had the
gospel and work the late hours and all that. It's easy to feel
sorry for yourself, but we ought not do that. Because our Lord
suffered this way, way, way worse than any of us ever suffered.
He said, if they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. If they've
kept my saying, they'll keep your saying. On the cross, Christ
was bearing a curse and a condemnation in the place of his people. There
he is declaring the righteousness of God and his enemy said it
was something he did to deserve it. Verse 8, an evil disease
say they cleaveth fast unto him, and now that he lieth, he shall
rise up no more. That marginal reference there
for an evil disease is a thing of Belial. Remember, they said
he's got... This is of the devil. The sinners say this today. You talk
to some and they'll tell you that that man Jesus that died
on the cross, he did something. He did what he deserved. Isaiah,
surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet
we did esteem him stricken and smitten of God. And that was
our thought. You and me, when we were dead
in our sins, our thought was, well, I don't know what was taking
place, but just like anybody, he was just getting what he deserved.
And that's what his enemies said about him. But he was wounded
for our transgression. What he was doing, he was doing
considering poor sinners. And then this had to be just
trouble, like betrayal. Betrayal is a horrible thing.
Betrayed by Judas. He said, verse 9, Yea, my own
familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, had
lifted up his heel against me. That was the sin and the enmity
he was met with. All these things he says here.
And you know, that's the sin and the enmity that he has to
save us from. That's the sin and enmity we
are. Before we start looking down our nose at his enemies,
we didn't make sure, remember, we were enemies in our mind by
wicked words at one time. That's what that's what will
help us remember these things whenever Our brethren that we
thought were brethren treat us like they treated our Lord Jesus.
That's how I treated them. That's how I treated these people.
They did the same thing when I was dead and sinless. Would
do it now if it wasn't for his keeping grace. That's where he
came and saved his people from. Still saving us from. But here's
what he's teaching us to do, brethren, when this happens,
He's teaching us to look to Christ, look to Him, the same as He looked to the
Father. Back up at verse 1. This was
His blessedness. He said, The Lord will deliver
Him in time of trouble. He's speaking of Himself here.
He's saying, Blessed is He that considereth the poor. And He's
talking about Himself. And He says, The Lord will deliver
Me in time of trouble. That's what he's saying. The
Lord will deliver me. The Lord will preserve me. He'll keep
me alive. I shall be blessed upon the earth.
Thou will not deliver me unto the will of mine enemies. And
so here's what he said there in verse 10. He's being faced
with all this. He said, But thou, O Lord, be
merciful unto me and raise me up that I may requite them. He didn't have to walk around
and paste the floor two or three days and run over a gene scenarios
in his mind. And this is what I should have
said and what I should. He didn't do all that. He didn't
have that sin mixed with it. This is what he did. The first. That's his faithfulness, I would
say. And that's what He's teaching
you and me. When we come into these situations, flee to Him.
Go straight to Him. Just like He went to the Father.
And you'll find the same blessings that He received. All this blessedness
of the blessed man right here. We'll have the same blessing. He's going to bless us. He's
going to keep us. He's going to preserve us. He won't deliver us to our
enemies. He's going to do it for Christ's sake. If you've
never believed on Christ, He's the only salvation there is. Trust Him. Look at those blessings.
I'll preserve Him. I'll deliver Him. I'll keep Him.
I won't let His enemies triumph over Him. You trust Christ. You rest in Christ from all your
works, from anything that you think you have to contribute.
Turn from that and rest in Christ. And all those blessings are yours
for Christ's sake. And you and I, brethren, who
do trust Him, go to Him. These are our blessings. He's
going to keep you coming to Him. He's going to make you receive
these blessings. Aren't we a pitiful bunch? We
have to be made to receive these blessings. He said, verse 11, By this I
know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph
over me. They thought they did. They thought
they did. When they nailed him to the cross,
they put him in that tomb. If they didn't, he arose the
third day. Satan thought he tromped over
and he thought he had won the day. And by bruising Christ's
heel, Christ crushed his head because he took all the sin of
his people away. So the devil's got nothing with
which to accuse us before the Father. Nothing. His all his
enemies that thought they had ended the word of the Lord Jesus
and they put his name out of the earth forever. Here we are,
2019 years later, still preaching him, been preaching him ever
since. Not even death in the grave could hold him. He triumphed
over all his enemies. That's how we know God favors
us, brethren. What does the scripture say?
In all these things, we're more than conquerors through Christ
that loved us. And get this now, this is one,
I have to get this. And if I have to get it, you
probably have to get it too. We're pretty much cut from the
same cloth. God the Father upheld Christ in His integrity. When
you have lies told on you or somebody's twisting what you
said, don't you want to defend yourself? You look to the Father to uphold
His integrity. And he did. Verse 12. As for
me, thou upholdest me in my integrity and setest me before thy face
forever. You think about this. God ordered
everything in Providence so that the enemies that came and were
going to charge him falsely, God wouldn't even let them agree
with each other. They couldn't even agree with each other. That's
God upholding his integrity. Then Pilate, his wife said, this
is an innocent man. He's a righteous man. I said,
I'm washing my hands. And then Judas threw the silver
down and said, he was righteous. God upheld his integrity. He
used his own enemies to say he's righteous. The very ones that charged him,
God made them clear of their charges. And then God justified him before
everybody. He raised him from the dead.
He said there, you've set me before your face forever. He
raised him from the dead and set him before his face right
there in his right hand forever. Forever. That's one thing I struggle
with. I want to defend myself. And
it ends up making a bigger mess than it would have if you just
let it alone. The Lord will defend you. He'll use your brethren
to defend you. He'll use your enemies to defeat
you. Although they don't even want
to and don't know what you're doing, He'll do that and He'll
preserve your integrity. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. He's upholding us in perfect
righteousness and perfect holiness before the Father. He'll uphold
our integrity in His earth before sinners. He will. So here's the
lesson, brethren. Let me end with this. Go back
there to verse 1. He says, Blessed is he that considered
the poor. Christ considered us. His poor
elect sinners. And He saved us. He is saving
us and He shall save us. He's still considering us. And
He's not going to lose one of His people. And so when His love
constrains you to do for others, don't get discouraged when folks
don't appreciate it, when they walk away, accuse you of this
or that. Just keep on considering the
Lord. Keep preaching the gospel. Keep supporting the gospel. Keep
sending the gospel forth. Because all these promises right
here are ours. The Lord's going to deliver you
in the time of trouble. The Lord's going to preserve you. He's going
to keep you alive. He's going to keep you blessed on the earth.
He's going to not deliver you to the will of your enemies.
He's going to strengthen you from your bed of languishing.
He's going to turn you in your bed of sickness. so you don't
get bed sores. He's going to turn you and keep
you rested. We got a loving, gentle, kind, gracious Heavenly
Father. And as we look at Christ alone
and He does all this for us, here's where He's going to keep
you right here. Here's where He's going to keep you. The last
verse, He's going to keep you saying, blessed be the Lord God
of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. And that's where
the double amen, amen and amen. Thank you, brother. Clay, let me be the first to
thank you for that message.